Establishing the best social media voice for your bar

Posted by ianmara on Aug 29, 2011 in Bar Marketing | 0 comments

So you’ve finally become familiar with the world of social media. You’re monitoring Foursquare check-ins, interacting with Facebook fans and cell phone-tweeting with speed and accuracy that would make a high school sophomore envious.

Just as important as your technical savvy is making sure you maintain a tone consistent with that of your business. Social media is a conversation and you need to be sure you’re using the right language.

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Customer Spotlight: Adobe Gilas

Posted by ianmara on Aug 23, 2011 in Customer Spotlight | 0 comments

From time to time in this space we will highlight work we are doing with clients as we utilize social media to generate more business. We hope it provides a sense for what can be achieved when tools such as Facebook, Twitter sand Foursquare are in the right hands.

Restaurant and grille Adobe Gilas is a small chain with two locations in Ohio; one in Dayton and another in one of suburban Columbus’ biggest shopping draws, Easton Town Center. It has a Mexican-infused menu and places heavy emphasis on happy hour, cocktails and a party atmosphere.

For years both of the Ohio locations have been rather well established offline. Recently they approached us hoping to grow that brand online by making use of social media. In less than a year Adobe Gilas has become a serious digital participant, very quickly doing some of the right things to engage customers in what was for them a new medium.

Here a few examples of what Adobe Gilas has been doing in recent months to expand its presence on the web.

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Take a seat for Twitter 101

Posted by ianmara on Aug 18, 2011 in Social Media for Bars | 0 comments

New technology can be scary. Not quite “My son brought Snooki Polizzi home for Christmas dinner” scary, but it’s definitely an arena where apprehension occasionally rears its ugly head.

In an effort to assuage those icky feeling with regards to one of social media’s biggest and most valuable platforms, we’ve decided to provide a quick tutorial for Twitter. It won’t have every answer, but it’ll be enough to get you up and tweeting with limited cries for your mamma. Read more..

Should you be using Twitter? (Spoiler: The answer is ‘YES’)

Posted by barblog on Aug 3, 2011 in Bar Marketing | 0 comments

We know there are still restaurant owners and managers out there making the same crotchety back-in-my-day comments about Twitter and “tweeting.” And while those jokes may still be funny in the right setting – a retirement community, for example. (We kid, we kid.) – the bottom line is your business simply can’t afford to ignore social media’s 140-character juggernaut.

Here are a few tips for figuring out how your establishment should be taking advantage of Twitter. Notice the word “whether” didn’t appear in that last sentence. This isn’t a choice, people. Read more..

How the internet influences a customer trying your bar for the first time

Posted by barblog on Jan 7, 2011 in Bar Marketing | 2 comments

Whether you realize it or not, your customers and potential customers are being influenced about their choice of dining/drinking location by factors that you may not be in control of.

2010 brought social networks like Twitter & Facebook more into the mainstream than they had ever been and 2011 looks to be an even more prolific year for these networks. Add into the mix location based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places, coupled with review websites like TripAdvisor, CitySearch and Yelp and you may find you have your hands full keeping up with everything online.

You have a few options. You could choose to ignore these websites and dismiss them as a fad or you could pay attention to the conversation that is ALREADY taking place out there about your business. And it IS taking place. To prove this to yourself, all you have to do is Google the name of your business and the search results will most likely yield a set of reviews with star ratings as part of the results. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Read more..